METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ENABLING ASSOCIATED PORTLETS OF A WEB PORTLET TO COLLABORATE FOR SYNCHRONIZED CONTENT DISPLAY

• US 20090287775A1
• Filed: 04/02/2009
• Published: 11/19/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/04/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Kapoor, Rohit, Nigul, Leho, Ng, Joanna
• Granted Patent: US 8,015,240 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/205
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking

Abstract

The invention provides method and apparatus for collaboration between a plurality of associated portlets in a portal server comprising: associating each portlet with a portlet descriptor describing context names; forming collaboration groups of portlets having corresponding context names for synchronized contents.

Claims

1. A computer readable storage medium comprising computer usable program code:

executed to perform operations for collaboration between a plurality of associated portlets in a portal server, the operations comprising;

defining a common Portlet Application Session Object, the Portlet Application Session Object comprising a data store session object and configured to allow each portlet in a portlet application to share session information;

associating each portlet in a portlet application with a portlet descriptor describing a dynamic context name, each portlet configured to access the common Portlet Application Session Object, the dynamic context name referencing a dynamic context configured to be changed during runtime; and

forming collaboration groups of portlets having corresponding dynamic context names, a collaboration group being a subgroup of the group of portlets in the portlet application, the portlets in each collaboration group sharing dynamic context changes through the Portlet Application Session Object.

2. The computer readable storage medium of claim 1 wherein each portlet in a portlet application comprises an independent portlet session, all independent portlet sessions for a portlet application sharing a Portlet Application Session Object.

3. The computer readable storage medium of claim 1 wherein said context names define dynamic context values;

each said group of portlets including a master portlet and at least one slave portlet.

4. The computer readable storage medium of claim 3 wherein each portlet belongs to a plurality of collaboration groups, each collaboration group comprising corresponding dynamic context names.

5. The computer readable storage medium of claim 3 wherein each said group of portlets share dynamic context names in common.

6. The computer readable storage medium of claim 5 further comprising communicating changes in dynamic context values of a master portlet to slave portlets of said master portlet.

7. The computer readable storage medium of claim 6 further comprising changing dynamic context values of said slave portlets to match dynamic context values of said master portlet as communicated.

8. A computer readable storage medium comprising computer usable program code executed to perform operations for hosting a plurality of associated portlets accessible by a user in a web portal having portlet refresh capability, wherein said portlets have portlet descriptors, the operations comprising:

defining a common Portlet Application Session Object, the Portlet Application Session Object comprising a data store session object and configured to allow each portlet in a portlet application to share session information;

managing said plurality of associated portlets in the portlet application, each portlet configured to access the common Portlet Application Session Object;

assigning a priority description to each portlet using its portlet descriptor, the portlet descriptor describing a dynamic context name, the dynamic context name referencing a dynamic context configured to be changed during runtime; and

,

refreshing said portlets in order of their refresh priorities.

9. The computer readable storage medium of claim 8 wherein said groups of associated portlets comprise collaboration groups of portlets;

each said group of portlets comprising a master portlet and at least one slave portlet.

10. The computer readable storage medium of claim 9 wherein each master portlet has a higher priority than a corresponding slave portlet.

11. The computer readable storage medium of claim 10 wherein said collaboration groups are assigned different priorities.

12. The computer readable storage medium of claim 11 wherein said collaboration groups of portlets are refreshed in order of their priorities.

13. The computer readable storage medium of claim 11 wherein refreshing occurs first by group priority order and then by portlet priority order within each group.

14. A portlet application capable of operating on a portal server for hosting multiple associated portlets in a web portal accessible by a user, said portal server providing messaging means for allowing said associated portlets to message each other, comprising:

a common Portlet Application Session Object, the Portlet Application Session Object comprising a data store session object and configured to allow each portlet in a portlet application to share session information;

portlet application means for managing said multiple associated portlets each portlet configured to access the common Portlet Application Session Object;

each associated portlet having a portlet descriptor, the portlet descriptor describing a dynamic context name, the dynamic context name referencing a dynamic context configured to be changed during runtime;

said associated portlets comprising collaboration groups of portlets having corresponding dynamic context names defining dynamic context values, the portlets in each collaboration group sharing dynamic context changes through the Portlet Application Session Object;

each said group of portlets comprising a master portlet and at least one slave portlet;

wherein each said group of portlets share dynamic context names in common;

means in said portal server for broadcasting communicating dynamic context changes in dynamic context values of a master portlet to slave portlets of said master portlet;

means in said portal server for changing dynamic context values of said slave portlets to match dynamic context values of said master portlet as broadcast.

15. The portlet application of claim 14 wherein each portlet in a portlet application comprises an independent portlet session, all independent portlet sessions for a portlet application sharing a Portlet Application Session Object.

16. The portlet application of claim 14 wherein each portlet belongs to a plurality of collaboration groups, each collaboration group comprising corresponding dynamic context names.